This week we’ll pick up where we left off after Week #14, and Section 4 of Chapter 4, which in the D&P translation starts on p. 97. As noted previously in Week #14, I have collected Calvin’s comments on the evils of the World, and our perverse attraction to it, in a special topics page, here:
One key discussion point we should note derives from the D&P translated word “mire” which is in the first sentence of Calvin’s opening Sec. of Ch 4, namely 4.1. That word in Calvin’s original, both Latin and French, is the word for “beastly” in English. Calvin was expressing the very important point that in our fallen nature the passions, appetites, priorities, etc. of our such being is “beastly,” namely that of (undomesticated) animals seeking food, reproduction, shelter, territory, and so forth.
Calvin’s Heading
Taken from Beveridge’s translation, the heading Calvin gave for this Section 4.4 is below:
4. Weariness of the present life how to be tempered.
Calvin, J., & Beveridge, H. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion (Vol. 2, p. 285). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society. [highlights, mine]
The believer’s estimate of life.
Comparison of the present and the future life.
How far the present life should be hated.
Calvin’s Opening Sentence
Calvin’s organized writing begins with a theme sentence for his Sections. Here the Beveridge translation gives us:
4. In proportion as this improper love diminishes
ibid.
[“diminishes” Lat. root: de (of) + trahō (dragged) = drawn away / down, dragged off]
our desire of a better life should increase.
The Teeter-Totter of that which Diminishes and that which Increases
Calvin gives us a teeter-totter concept: one end is “improper love” and the other “better life.” The key idea is as the one “diminishes”–improper love–the other should “increase”–desire for a better life. As noted above, the root of Calvin’s Latin original word is detraho, where “tradho,” and its other forms such as “tractus,” is the root of the English word for “tractor,” that farm machine that drags implements to reshape the soil. This gives us a richer view of our situation than “diminish,” namely: what’s required is not turning down the volume but being dragged away from the proclamations of human-wisdom given in popular media.
The teeter-totter framing gives us the imagery of no compromising; it’s one primary leaning, or the other. This no compromise relationship was expressed by the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount:
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Matt 6:19-25 (ESV, highlights mine)
Later, the Lord restated this principle connecting it with faithfulness, now to an audience that included the Pharisees:
10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” 14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.
Luke 16:10-15 (ESV, highlights mine)
So the question can be framed as this: to what am I “faithful” toward?
One obvious possible answer is that I am faithful to my natural desires of an earth-bound, fallen son (or daughter) of Adam, which is to pursue that which is drawn by my eye, my flesh, and my pride of life (1 John 2:16). The Pharisees who considered themselves to be God-followers, and man-leaders, while being God-honored, found Jesus’s teaching ridiculous (ESV), which other translations give us as scoffed, scorned, mocked, deriding, sneering. (Whenever, one finds many different words translating the same original word it is a clue for us that the full nuance in the original is richer than can be captured in a one-to-one word-mapping). Later, the Pharisees determine the words of Jesus are literal blasphemy; here they are seen as unworthy of any wise person, let alone someone being thought to be a rabbi by the people (a wise teacher of the true words of God).
What Grows from One’s Diminished Improper Love? “Desire for a Better Life”
Much like a parent advising a child making dumb, earthy choices, Calvin’s opening sentence gives us the emergence of the “desire for a better life” upon having been ‘dragged away’ from our improper loves.
This phrase–“desire for a better life”–is the chorus of a song sung into our ear, and emerging from our own nature, thousands of times a day. It’s ‘the pitch’ behind advertising campaigns for products for sale, activities offered, candidates and political parties, and broadly The Religion Industry (TRI) and The Political Industry (TPI). One could use such phrase as the explanation for almost every choice and action one is inclined to take. Why does, or should, one go to school? For a “better life.” Exercise and healthful diet? “Better life.” Work hard? “Better life.” Make lots of money? “Better life.”
Well, it is important to ask, then, the meaning both of “better” and “life.”
What is “Life?”
I once bought the foundational medical textbook of obstetrics used by a major med school as a gift for someone becoming a mom. Before I gave it away, I examined the index of some dozen or more pages looking for something like “life, meaning of…” or even just “life.” There was no such entry. However, there were massive, and distressing, entries for birth defects and diseases that occur in physical life. (Which is why giving such a gift a new mom-to-be is a really bad idea).
One can summarize the point of medical schools as being sustaining physical / biological “life.” When one enters the medical system, be it by ER, by annual physicals, or to a ‘doc in a box’ urgent care neighborhood facility, it is all and only about such “life.”
We have, however, other institutions and practioners of another form of “life,” that of soul-life, or psychological life. There is some connection of soul-life with bio-life, but there are distinctions, and drugs and counsel that seek to make sense of the difference and help make it “better.” The institutions of TRI and TPI make its own claims on this domain.
What Calvin, and the Scriptures, bring us to is understanding that as new creations in Christ, we have a distinct “life,” known by many terms in Scripture: eternal life, Spiritual life, regenerated life, et al. And important Koine word here is zoe, which has become a widely used girl’s name.
We cannot even begin to examine the full scope of “life” as the Bible provides it to us. Given below is a pdf of an excellent resource that can be used for further, deeper study:
Calvin highlights a particular distinctive of “life” which is the “better,” namely “heaven.” The word “heaven” occurs more than 400 times in Calvin’s Institutes. Here in our present Section 4.4 we have:
- “If heaven is our country, what can the earth be but a place of exile?” and
- “But “whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:6.) Thus when the earthly is compared with the heavenly life, it may undoubtedly be despised and trampled under foot.” (ibid., emphasis mine)
Such reference to “heaven” is contrasted with our most-present experience of “earth, earthly” (shown below are all of Calvin’s usages in Ch 4, which below are designated “III, ix” referencing Institutes’s Book 3 and Chapter 9, which has become Ch 4 in our Little Book):
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix
The crown of victory in heaven after the contest on earth.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 1
But when you attend to the plans, wishes, and actions of each, you see nothing in them but the earth.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 1
In short, the whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 2
2. For there is no medium between the two things: the earth must either be worthless in our estimation, or keep us enslaved by an intemperate love of it.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 2
For we form all our plans just as if we had fixed our immortality on the earth.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 2
Who then can deny that it is of the highest importance to us all, I say not, to be admonished by words, but convinced by all possible experience of the miserable condition of our earthly life; since even when convinced we scarcely cease to gaze upon it with vicious, stupid admiration, as if it contained within itself the sum of all that is good?
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 3
For the Lord hath ordained, that those who are ultimately to be crowned in heaven must maintain a previous warfare on the earth, that they may not triumph before they have overcome the difficulties of war, and obtained the victory.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 3
When once we have concluded that our earthly life is a gift of the divine mercy, of which, agreeably to our obligation, it behoves us to have a grateful remembrance, we shall then properly descend to consider its most wretched condition, and thus escape from that excessive fondness for it, to which, as I have said, we are naturally prone.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 4
If heaven is our country, what can the earth be but a place of exile?
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 4
But “whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord,” (2 Cor. 5:6.) Thus when the earthly is compared with the heavenly life, it may undoubtedly be despised and trampled under foot.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 5
I admit this, and therefore contend that we ought to look to future immortality, where we may obtain that fixed condition which nowhere appears on the earth.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 5
For Paul admirably enjoins believers to hasten cheerfully to death, not because they “would be unclothed, but clothed upon,” (2 Cor. 5:2.) Shall the lower animals, and inanimate creatures themselves, even wood and stone, as conscious of their present vanity, long for the final resurrection, that they may with the sons of God be delivered from vanity, (Rom. 8:19;) and shall we, endued with the light of intellect, and more than intellect, enlightened by the Spirit of God, when our essence is in question, rise no higher than the corruption of this earth?
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 6
6. Thus, indeed, it is; the whole body of the faithful, so long as they live on the earth, must be like sheep for the slaughter, in order that they may be conformed to Christ their head, (Rom. 8:36.) Most deplorable, therefore, would their situation be did they not, by raising their mind to heaven, become superior to all that is in the world, and rise above the present aspect of affairs, (1 Cor. 15:19.) On the other hand, when once they have raised their head above all earthly objects, though they see the wicked flourishing in wealth and honour, and enjoying profound peace, indulging in luxury and splendour, and revelling in all kinds of delights, though they should moreover be wickedly assailed by them, suffer insult from their pride, be robbed by their avarice, or assailed by any other passion, they will have no difficulty in bearing up under these evils.
Institutes of the Christian Religion III, ix, 6
But the wicked who may have flourished on the earth, he will cast forth in extreme ignominy, will change their delights into torments, their laughter and joy into wailing and gnashing of teeth, their peace into the gnawing of conscience, and punish their luxury with unquenchable fire.
ibid. (highlights mine)
And, so, Calvin’s use of “earth” echoes the Book of Ecclesiastes and its repeated reference to “under the sun” and “vanity” (emptiness, vapidity).
Calvin’s Cited Verses in Ch 4, Sec 4
Below is a pdf of the four verses Calvin cites in 4.4:
Calvin’s teaching in this section is severe with respect to this present life contrasted with the heavenly life to come. Before dismissing this, or some of this, attributing it to his ‘severe’ nature (which was not actually the case), let us dig deeper into the following Biblical texts.
2nd Corinthian Epistle, and the Life Yet to Come
Chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians begins as follows:
5:1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
2 Cor 5:1-5 (ESV, highlights mine)
Then what follows is the verse Calvin cites, 2 Cor 5:6:
There is an error in the red-font legend: It should be, reading top to bottom…ESV, Lemma, Lemma Transliterated, Root, Root Transliterated, CODE, Strong’s G. The CODE is used by Logos s/w to categorize the morphology (specific role) of the respective word in the mss, which form is not shown above. Briefly, in the context of the above:
Dative case words are designated by “D” in the second position, thus DDSN is a definite pronoun, in the Dative case, Singular Neuter. Genitive case words have a “G” in the second position, thus DSGM is a definite article, Genitive, Singular Masculine. Verbs begin with a “V.” Participle forms of a verb have “PP in the fourth position. So VPAP-PNM is a verb, in the Present Active Participle form, Plural Nominative Masculine, and VRAP-PNM is in the Perfect tense (the “R”).
There is much to be noted above, so let us pause and consider it. Shown are seven lines of text in the following order top to bottom: the ESV translation, the Koine manuscript (mss) in which it originated, the “Lemma” of the mss word (aka as “the dictionary form”), the root from which the Lemma stems (if any), the CODE of the particular semantic form (job) of the word, and finally the Strong’s G number that can be used with sites such as Blue Letter Bible .org.
We see that the verse begins with “so,” or “therefore,” so it points us back to the opening verses of Ch 5, shown above. In particular the preceding verses end with the claim of a guarantee, an astonishing and greatest possible one of significance, namely that of the Holy Spirit of God assuring our transit from ‘here’ to ‘there,’ and eternally so.
Given such reality, and certainty, vs. 6 then says we are “always” of “tharsos” which word is “thorax” in English, referring to our chest cavity in which our heart resides. But there is a different Koine word for “heart” (“cardia,” from which of course we get cardiac) but tharsos means more than either the physical heartbeat or the place of desires and passions: it means that of outwardly expressed courage that comes from deep within. The word only occurs six times in the NT, and five of them in 2 Corinthians, which is remarkable; the other other occurrence is Heb. 13:6–“the Lord is my Helper, I will not tharsos what man can do to me.” It also occurs 10 times in the OT, notably at Exodus 14:13 where the Lord delivered Israel from its slavery in Egypt across the Red Sea, so there is a beautiful parallel to our text here in 2 Cor 5:6.
As shown above there are there participles. Participles are verbs but are used as adjectives, so they are active, activating modifiers. The first and third ones, as shown are in the “present” tense emphasizing ‘the now’ of the participle modifier, whereas the second one is in the “perfect” tense which is the form that had a particular beginning in the past and continues to the present. The tense of participles is, as a general rule, tied to the tense of the main verb, which is here “we are away,” which is also in the present tense. So the entire verse is emphasizing a present reality of life in our respective “tents” awaiting a permanent, heavenly dwelling.
The other two phrases, the shown dative and genitive ones, frame the rest of the context. Dative phrases can tell us many things but here is either (or both) conveying the idea of our location (in the body) or the instrumentality of our present being (that the body we occupy in the ‘instrument’ of our being in spacetime, with all its temporal, mortal limits). The genitive phrase tells us something the ‘belongs’ to our being, namely that it is necessarily “away from the Lord.” Because this context is about contrasting our present body / life with that which is to come, this being “away” is not about the Lord’s absence from overseeing our life, or accessible to our prayers, and all such, but about the stark reality that we are not bodily joined to a form that will one day be in His physical presence. The OT book Song of Solomon gives us a deeply mysterious, poetic picture of “the bride” longing for, and in search of, her “bridegroom,” that connects with this idea. Similarly the many “lamentation” genre Psalms, which is the largest category of Psalms has this same element of us not being wholly home.
Given such condition, Calvin’s claim of holding no grip of love on this present life is right, though it can feel wrong as we have certain joys here, some genuine from God and others deceitful, actually many others deceitful.
Because this concept is difficult for most of us most of the time, I have paste in below this same interlinear format for the other verses Calvin has cited:
Romans 7:4
Philippians 1:23-24
Romans 14:8
The Ache of Incompleteness, Inadequacy of the Present World
A further connection to Calvin’s main point in this Sec. 4, and actually all the Sections, of Ch 4, is found in the important chapter of “Good Works” found in all the key Reformation Confessions. In particular, consider the below, Chapter 16 of the 1689 London 2nd Baptist Confession, which became the important 1742 Philadelphia Confession:
CHAP. XVI. Of Good Works.
London 2nd Baptist Confession of 1689, Chapter 16 (highlights mine)
1. Good Works are only such as God hath (a) commanded in his Holy word; and not such as without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, (b) or upon any pretence of good intentions. a Mic. 6.8. Heb. 13 21. b Mat. 15.9. Isa. 29.13.
2. These good works, done in obedience to Gods commandments, are the fruits, and evidences (c) of a true, and lively faith; and by them Believers manifest their (d) thankfullness, strengthen their (e) assurance, edifie their (f) brethren, adorn the profession of the Gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries and glorifie (g) God whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus (h) thereunto, that having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end (i) eternal life. c Jam. 2.18.22. d Ps. 116.12,13. e 1 Joh. 2 3.5. 2 Pet. 1.5-11. f Mat. 5.16. g 1 Tim. 6.1. 1 Pet. 2.15. Phil. 1.11 h Eph. 2.10. i Rom. 6.22.
3. Their ability to do good works, is not at all of themselves; but wholly from the Spirit (k) of Christ; and that they may be enabled thereunto, besides the graces they have already received, there is necessary an (l) actual influence of the same Holy Spirit, to work in them to will, and to do, of his good pleasure; yet are they not hereupon to grow negligent, as if they were not bound to perform any duty, unless upon a special motion of the Spirit; but they ought to be diligent in (m) stirring up the Grace of God that is in them. k Joh. 15.4.6. l 2 Cor. 3.5. Phil. 2.13. m Phil. 2.12. Heb. 6.11 12. Isa. 64.7.
4. They who in their obedience attain to the greatest height which is possible in this life, are so far from being able to superrogate, and to do more then God requires, as that (n) they fall short of much which in duty they are bound to do. n Job 9.2 3. Gal. 5.17. Luk. 17.10.
5. We cannot by our best works merit pardon of Sin or Eternal Life at the hand of God, by reason of the great disproportion that is between them and the glory to come; and the infinite distance that is between us and God, whom by them we can neither profit, nor satisfie for the debt of our (o) former sins; but when we have done all we can, we have done but our duty, and are unprofitable servants; and because as they are good they proceed from his (p) Spirit, and as they are wrought by us they are defiled (q) and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that they cannot endure the severity of Gods judgement. o Rom. 3.20. Eph. 2.8,9. Rom. 4.6. p Gal. 5.22,23. q Isa. 64.6. Ps. 143 2.
6. Yet notwithstanding the persons of Believers being accepted through Christ their good works also are accepted in (r) him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblameable and unreprovable in Gods sight; but that he looking upon them in his Son is pleased to accept and reward that which is (s) sincere although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections. r Eph. 1.6. 1 Pet. 2.5. s Mat. 25.21.23. Heb. 6.10
7. Works done by unregenerate men although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use, both to themselves and (t) others; yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by (u) faith, nor are done in a right manner according to the (w) word, nor to a right end the (x) glory of God; they are therefore sinful and cannot please God; nor make a man meet to receive grace from (y) God; and yet their neglect of them is more sinful and (z) displeasing to God. t 2 King. 10.30. 1 King. 21.27,29 u Gen. 4.5. Heb. 11 4.6. w 1 Cor. 13.1. x Mat. 6.2.5. y Amos 5 21,22. Rom. 9.16 Tit. 3.5. z Job 21.14,15. Mat. 25.41,42,43.
The connection of the above highlighted text and our thoughts here in Calvin’s Ch 4 is this: even as we progress–however haltingly, erratically, imperfectly–on this maturation of the Christian walk (aka “sanctification”) we often, and rightly, perceive the horizon to which we long actually recedes and our falling short, and those around us, actually increases. As troubling as this can be, it is the nature of pursuing the ultimate “image” to which we were called to be in Gen. 1 and 2, and which image was vandalized even to the sentence of death in Gen. 3.
Even secular pursuits toward an ideal of excellence / perfection has a parallel feature. Consider the connection between a recently passed classical pianist and musicologist–Karl Haas–and his teacher–Artur Schnable–and his teacher–Theodor Leschetizky–and going back even to Brahms and Beethoven, all strivers for an artistic perfection of musical performance, and never reaching the experience, the finality, the ‘doneness’ of it. The ideal, even in this domain, is an asymptote, not a ‘dot’ on the spacetime line of “perfect” at some final moment of one’s human life. The central cemetery in Vienna Austria holds the remains of some 44 famous pursuers of musical perfection, completeness. This site has a photographic record of these gravesites.
Chalmer’s Book: The Expulsive Power of a New Affection
A useful resource on the practical outworking of diminishing one love / inclination for a better one is a book by Thomas Chalmers, D.D. (1780-1847) entitled: The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. Below is a product description of that book from Amazon.
Dr. Chalmers states that “It is seldom that any of our tastes are made to disappear by a mere process of natural extinction,” and “the heart must have something to cling to—and never, by its own voluntary consent, will it so denude itself of all its attachments.” Therefore the superior affection for God through the free Gospel of Christ is necessary to displace worldly affections. This sermon, written by one of the foremost minds of his day, has become seminal for modern thought.
Amazon Books
John Piper has written an essay praising Chalmers’s book, here: The essay is well worth reading. Below is a quote from it:
I recall once being asked a trick question: If you had access to all the latest machinery in a sophisticated science lab, what would be the most effective way to get all the air out of a glass beaker? One ponders the possible ways to suck the air out and create a vacuum. Eventually, the answer is given: fill it with water. That is the point of Chalmers’s famous message. It is intended as an illumination of 1 John 2:15: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Chalmers poses for himself the question: How shall the human heart be freed from its love for the world? (How shall the air of world-love be removed from the soul-beaker?) This “love” is not a duty one performs. It is a delight one prefers. It is an affection before it is a commitment.
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-expulsive-power-of-a-new-affection